


They Lived, They Live

by YourTrueNemesis



Category: The Illuminae Files - Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Genre: Angst, Because fuck Beitech, Childhood, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Growing Up, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, honestly, more tags will be added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 06:26:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14971016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourTrueNemesis/pseuds/YourTrueNemesis
Summary: Beitech wasn't the beginning for them.And Beitech wasn't the end either.





	They Lived, They Live

**Author's Note:**

> Four out of ten works are AUs, and three of the six others are reader inserts.
> 
> So this fandom needs more Cannon Shit™

Kady Grant is a marvel. Well… not really. She’s considered by most as either a mythical, saint like figure or a terrorist. She’s not really sure which one she is either, but she prefers the word: marvel. No good or bad connotation to it, and it sounds nice on her tongue. Marvel. Her mom called her that when she was little. Marvleous, marvelous Kady. She misses her mother more than she can say, but every time she hears the word marvel, her ache dulls into something almost like content.  
Her mother was always working. Always poking and prodding at patients, always staring into a microscope, always working harder and harder. Her father was around more. Sure, he may have microwaved her meals and interrogated her boyfriends and girlfriends, but he loved her.  
So she spent her life with Asha. Bright, beautiful Asha, who seemed quietly sad whenever Kady mentioned her boyfriend. She’d never fought with Asha, well not never. They’d fought over the stupid, silly things that all children and teens fought for. Awesome Super Turbo Team, or Turbo Super Awesome Team, which boy was more attractive, which flavor of ice cream tasted better.  
But Kady was happy. She and Asha had movie nights and slumber parties, and even after Asha started working at the pharmacy, she still carved out time in her schedule for her little cousin Kady. Asha was there when Kady had her first crush. And Asha held her while Kady had cried, lamenting that it was a girl, worried that her father wouldn’t like her. Asha had called her Kades. Kady had always liked that. It made her feel grown up and important. Not like her father. He called her Kady-Kat. Called her that until they got into the biggest fight of their lives.  
It started with dehydrated potato salad. It had been the night before he left for his work on Heimdall. Potato salad had always been Kady’s favorite, and Isaac had made some for her every holiday. He’d said that it hoped that it made up for his leaving her.  
She had screamed at him then.  
Screamed and sobbed and cried that potato salad couldn’t replace her daddy. She’d thrown the bowl to the floor and ran to her room.  
She hadn’t seen him leave.  
Later he’d called her and apologized for everything. And they’d cried together for hours and hours on end.  
By that time, Ezra and her had been together for fourteen months. But then they’d broken up. Kady wanted to be upset. Wanted to scream and cry… but nothing came.  
Asha took a week off from her job so she could stay home with Kady, and they’d eaten burnt popcorn with sugar and salt, and Kady hadn’t cried once.  
But then everything had happened.  
It was then that Kady realized that she’d never see her mother, or her cousin, and maybe never see her father again.  
She hadn’t cried. Not immediately. But then she met AIDAN, and she’d cursed at him. Cried for him. And suddenly she had realized that she wasn’t crying for her programmed friend, (at least not only for him) but for her family. Her loved ones.  
She then was lead programmer on the Hypatia, and then the same on the Mao.  
Difficult decisions were never her forté, but she’d made them, with a skill and a grace that belied her age. And she’d let AIDAN take that from her. Let him manipulate her. Let him “protect” her. “Protect” them all. She wasn’t as oblivious as AIDAN had thought she was. She knew what he was doing.  
She knew that he’d fallen in love with her.  
Whatever, maybe she’d fallen a little bit in love with him too. But it doesn’t matter, because she’s in love with Ezra, and AIDAN is a crazy, manipulative bastard.  
So it means nothing.  
And suddenly, it’s Ben Garver, and she’s in charge and she doesn’t even have time to grieve for Syra Boll before she has to plan a rescue for her cousin and everyone on Kerenza. Everyone that’s still alive.  
She nearly lost Ezra then, and she did lose AIDAN. AIDAN, who apparently had been sacrificing himself for her all along. Something even she couldn’t see coming.  
Now, she’s on Terra. Somewhere she never thought she’d see. Her mom used to tell her stories, but those were of Neo-Mumbai where she’d grown up.  
Terra was nothing like her stories. Neo-Mumbai was all colorful markets and age old halls from the twenty-third century. It was nothing like New Petersburg.  
New Petersburg was more exciting than anything in her mothers stories on India. New Petersburg had snow, not hard, pure snow like the snow on Kerenza, but dirty, foot caking door blocking slush. New Petersburg had class sections. It had shiny, chrome skyscrapers, and squat concrete apartments stacked next to one another like bricks. New Petersburg had antique shops filled with relics, tiny restaurants behind damp concrete walls. Restaurants filled with warm orange light an television showing news in English with subtitles in Rus.  
But most importantly, New Petersburg has her friends.  
The dirty New petersburg snow hits her face as snowballs during Winter, catching against bronze skin and melting into perfectly natural dyed dark brown hair. The shiny chrome skyscrapers give hours of entertainment, she and Hanna and Rhys laughing into one another as their reflections distort into various ludicrous shapes. The squat apartments were Nik’s favorite place to do tricks. And when he’d fractured his ankle attempting a backflip (don’t ask), he had still ran across the roofs with her, no matter the pain it caused him. She and her friends had a regular appointment for Old Rus food is Nik’s hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Food that they wasted a lot of by throwing too far over Rhys’ head for him the catch.  
New Petersburg let her blend in. Even with her brown skin and browner eyes. Terra had accepted her much easier than anyone on Kerenza had.  
Her dad hadn’t wanted her to live with Ezra, and even though she resented it, and she hadn’t wanted to be a third wheel for Asha and Rhys.  
So she stayed with her father. Her father, and Hanna. Hanna, who though not being much younger than her, felt like the little sister she’d always wanted… well, not always but after Asha had acted like her older sister, she’d wanted to pass the love on.  
She and Asha continued the movie night tradition, inviting Ella and Hanna to join them. Unfortunately, once Ella joined, it became less of a movie night, and more of a drunk movie night.  
That girl can certainly hold her liquor.  
Her life is good. She got an internship at a computer company, and she and Ella programmed video games on the side.  
All of this, every moment in her life so far had led up to this moment. Four in the morning (she was still getting used to the sidereal time they used on Terra) and hyped up on three cans of Mount Russshmore Energy Drink®. She is tweaking that last line of code (it’s always the semicolon, always) for her latest VR game when she feels heavy arms wrap about her shoulders.  
“Ezra… just let me finish this last-”  
“Kades, shh. You know, you do actually need to fucking sleep.”  
“I know, I know… but this goes public next-”  
“Kady.”  
“Okay.” She sighs, rubbing at her eyes as Ezra pulls back her chair. A message pings up on her palmpad (they still use them, it’s an old habit, and it’s not like any of them trust the government anymore).  
“Ezra? Can you answer that for me?” Kady stretches her arms behind her back and yawns wider than she thought humanly possible.  
“Ez? Does my dad know you’re here?” Ezra doesn’t respond, staring blankly at the palmpad. “Ezra?” She waves a hand in his general direction, “Yo. Dipshit? You awake?”  
“Hm?” He quickly shuts off the palmpad and looks up, “Oh, yeah, he does. He called me actually. He’s worried about you.”  
“Just because I’m subsisting on caffeine-”  
“Yeah yeah. Let’s go to bed.” Ezra wraps an arm around her shoulders and starts leading her off to her bedroom. They pass the door to Hanna’s room (they can hear Nik snoring inside, but who has to know) and just as they’re entering Kady’s self proclaimed “lair”, Kady asks,  
“So who the hell was that anyway?”  
“Just someone checking up on you, come on, let’s go.”


End file.
